High salt levels in processed foods

Just becuase I am bored I have decided to see how much salt was in many processed foods we have in the house.

An example is a 290g tin of Morrisons Vegatable Soup, it contains 3.7g of salt! That is more than half the daily amount for both men and women.

From now on I am not buying anything from the supermarket until I check the fat and salt levels.

 

If its processed then you are likely to be out of luck I am afraid.

There is a lot of contradictory information about salt, new deata suggests that the body simply expels the salt it does not need.

Never the less, its a product the body does not need a lot of, and typically those products that have a lot of salt tend not to be particularly good for you. The only things I can think off my head that will be good for you are items purely cured by salt, such as gammon, anchovies etc.

The recent spate of health posts on this forum I hope will convince a few of our younger/lazier chums to have a go at some home cooking.

 

I can cook pasta if that counts

My uncle loved his fish and chips and he died at 54 of a heart attack so its really made me think. The last few days I have watched what I have been eating a bit more (I have still been eating some junk but a lot less of it - none of the 10 biscuits a day crap).

Since I have started doing this I no longer get heart burn.

So even is there is mixed evidence about salt, I suppose by cutting down my salt intake I am cutting out other junk.

 

The government's recently tried to force food producers to reduce the levels of salt in processed food. The response was a resounding "get lost, no one will buy our products". Funny thing is, they may well be right but it is one of the reasons I don't buy ready meals and the like.

A good example is curry powder. Have a look at the ingredients to any type of premixed curry powder, salt will usually be the second item on the list of ingredients. We are used to high levels of salt in our cooking and without it we consoder our food tastes bland. It takes time for our palates to adjust down to lower levels of salt and most people, including many TV chefs won't countenace doing so.

But after awhile you do get used to lower levels and begin to realise you don't need that much salt to enhance flavour. Or so I've found.

 

Have to agree, we have home cooked for the last 5 years. It tastes better and you feel better.

Also, the last year we have had mostly home grown veg, yummy!

 

I can happily eat a packet of crisps without salt (the Smiths ones where you can get a salt sachet). I also never put salt and vinagar on chips. To be honest I would rather something didn't taste as good than have 15g of salt a day.

 

The good life eh?

 

it's just abput balance really - keeps thing in moderation and have a good variety of healthy food...tho, my biggest downfall are sweet food like cakes and biscuits etc...sigh...

 

Indeed, except without Felicity Kendal

Pulled the last of this years carrots lastnight.

 

Unfortunately this is hard to do when so many of us are unaware what is actually in the food we eat or what constitutes the recommended daily amount. Garyi is right that the only sensible way to be sure is to cook it yourself.

 

Check out the soup recipes on the other thread AT and make it yourself! You'll never go back to shoddy tinned soups.
Good soup book.....
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-2740550-1539827
yumyum

 

I *loathe* plain crisps (and vanilla ice cream) as they're just so dull, but salt'n'vinegar are grim too (I do use the odd bit of both on the VERY rare occasion I go to a chip shop).

I never use salt as an additional ingredient - I don't even think we've GOT any in our house.

 

You just have to put salt and vinegar on fish and chips

 

salt is a very useful ingredient, if used in the right amount it brings out the flavour of other things. I love plain crips with beer

 

I find it makes them soggy.

 

Crisps are the only way to eat the head of your Guiness.

 

It's not just salt that worries me...
It's the added sugar, or much worse, artificial sweeteners - both aspartame and saccharrin are heavily implicated in causing bowel cancer - and colourants that annoy me the most.
Even dog food isn't exempt - for some reason it's full of the very same colourants (E102, 127, 133) that are linked to hyperactivity in children. Last thing you need is a more hyperactive dog! And why's it there? So that the manufacturer can convince owners that the food is healthy and high in vegetables! Dog doesn't give a toss either way...

 

There is plenty to worry about. Chickens grown to full or over size in 40 days is the result of feeding them fat. A chicken from birth to the slaughter houses costs 64p to feed. An average chicken has 1 pint of bad fat in it. A portion of cheap chicken has as much fat as a big mac.

Pork and Chicken are pumped with antibiotics to stop various deaseses from their captivity, this is passed up the food chain.

Artifical Sweetners are part of the 'high risk' catagory of chemicals used in food.

Processed meats such as sausages and burgers typically contain less than 60% meat. Cheap 'value' products contain less then 40% meat. The rest is made from rusk, breadcrumbs and can even contain a certain amount of sawdust. The meat that is in them are 'mechanically reclaimed' typically that means the carcusses are hung and plasted with compressed air to remove everything thats left, this hits a back wall which is then scraped down and put in. Skin, lips and eyes always go in. That bit before the hoof of a pig, that goes in.

Jelly is made from pig bones.

As I say. I am a realist. I like sausages and I eat them. I will not eat processed chicken. I can take or leave meat I really am not fussed to be honest.

Once every two weeks or so I will buy a waitrose Pizza or some such but most every meal I eat I have cooked or my Wife has cooked from scratch apart from some rather nice sauces from 'Seeds of Change' 100% organic with no nasties.

 

supermarket food usually sh*te - no matte haw they label it....I rarely buy meat from them - I bought a paol roast the other week tho, it shrank by about 1/3 and it looked bad when cooked that I ate less than 1/3 of what was left...

 

I'm a bit of a 'Happy Meat' eater these days. I don't eat meat unless its what my mum gets from The Real Meat Company or trusted local suppliers (generally, as I don't ask where the meat comes from if I'm having a pub lunch or chomping on a burger off the bbq). I find it disturbing to compare the look and smell of the dark mince beef she gets to the bright red mince you see in Tesco. Also when its cooked it doesn't leak fat and water everywhere and actually smells like beef. Tesco mince virtually has to have the fat drained off otherwise your spag bol leaves a horrible residue around your mouth that remains with you for the rest of the night.
I'm off home to my folks this weekend so will enjoy my first meat dish for a while